What Does the UN (United Nations) Do?

Regardless of the context, you have almost certainly heard of the United Nations, but

their purpose on the world stage might seem somewhat enigmatic; are they a kind of central

global government?

Are they the world’s police force?

Are they a kind of world parliament?

Are they the doing of the lizard people themselves?

Who even knows?!

Well, I wrote a video to explain it all, so I guess I do.

The United Nations (or UN) is-- to at least clarify some things-- an intergovernmental

organization created to foster international cooperation and collaboration.

Founded in 1945, shortly before the end of World War II, the UN was essentially the second

try to the League of Nations, another intergovernmental organization meant to preserve international

peace after World War I, that quickly fell on its face and was disbanded in 1946.

The UN first consisted of its permanent security council nations (known as the “Big Five”),

as well as 46 other countries, later growing to eventually encompass basically every sovereign

country in the world.

In fact, unless you want to be like Vatican City, membership of the UN is-- while not

a requirement for nationhood-- nonetheless something prospective independence movements

generally strive for.

The UN now consists of 193 member nations, and two observer states, those of course being

the Holy See and the State of Palestine.

Alright that’s all well and dandy… but what does it do, exactly?

Is it a kind of attempt at a one-world government, or something like that?

Not exactly, the UN is generally best seen as a kind of international forum, where international

laws can be passed, international disputes and issues brought into light for the community

at large to weigh in on, and violations of international law be efficiently dealt with.

The main responsibilities of the UN are not to govern the world like the US governs its

states, or even like the EU governs its constituent countries, but to form some sort of international

framework to tackle international issues, those including everything from wars and deadly

conflicts, to climate change, to food production, to sustainable development, to even the current

Coronavirus pandemic.

The UN’s organization is split up into six different principal organs: the Security Council,

the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), the Trusteeship Council,

the International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat.

The UN also uses the Peacekeepers-- generally manned by troops contributed by member nations--

to control conflicts in especially war-torn areas.

The Security Council plays a big role in the UN’s governance, especially among its five

permanent members, originally made up of the US, the UK, the France, the Soviet Union,

and the Republic of China, with China having been replaced by its Communist counterpart,

and the Soviet Union later by its non-Communist counterpart.

These five nations hold great sway over the politics of the UN, notably in determining

which countries are allowed to join, among other legislation.

They however are also joined by a rotating list of 10 other members, somewhat better

representing the different regions of the world.

That’s not to say the Big Five hasn’t made controversial decisions though, namely

in blocking legislation that would condemn a close ally (without getting too deep into

the politics, many such examples include the US with Israel and China with North Korea).

The General Assembly is also a big part of the UN, as it is the collection of all its

member nations.

Basically whenever you see speeches and debates from that huge gold and brown room with all

the nations put together, yeah that’s the General Assembly.

While the General Assembly holds veto power over bills and prospective new members, it

is the General Assembly which votes these motions into being, along with budgets, suggestions

to the Security Council, and new Secretaries General.

The current Secretary General is Portugal’s António Gutterres, and he leads the UN Secretariat,

which administers the whole thing, basically think of the General Assembly and the Security

Council as the Legislative Branch in US politics, and the Secretariat as the Executive Branch.

You can also think of the International Court of Justice as a kind of Judicial Branch, as

it deals with international laws and disputes between members.

The ECOSOC deals with economic and social cooperation, and is made up of made up of

54 member states serving staggered 3-year terms.

Finally there’s also the UN Trusteeship Council, for managing colonial possessions

and trusteeships, but which has been inactive since 1994.

The UN is also split up into numerous special agencies working different purposes in the

international community, some of the most notable including the Food and Agriculture

Organization (FAO), International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), International Fund for

Agricultural Development (IFAD), International Labour Organization (ILO), International Maritime

Organization (IMO), International House of Pancakes (IHOP), International Monetary Fund

(IMF), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), United Nations Educational, Scientific

and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations Industrial Development Organization

(UNIDO), World Health Oranization (WHO), Universal Postal Union (UPU), and the World Bank Group

(WBG), as well as other similar organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO).

These organizations all have important jobs in coordinating particular things nations

have to do together, for example the FAO leads international efforts to end world hunger

(among many other things), the ICAO regulates how airports work so planes can actually land

there without any sort of drama (among others), the IMF fosters global monetary cooperation

for a stable economy (as with a lot of other things), and UNESCO is perhaps most famous

for their world heritage sites but they’re mainly there to lead global cooperation through

science and cultural education… (as well as a lot of other stuff).

Largely due to how it is structured, the UN has received loads of criticism for being

largely ineffective.

Without it though, world diplomacy would still be quite a bit of a free-for-all, and since

world leaders are-- surprise, surprise-- human, world leaders have often been known to act

out of what can be described as pettiness.

My god, I can only imagine what that would be like.

Hey, did I hear talk about petty international disputes?

Spaghetti Road?

Why… yes, yes you did.

Why do you ask?

Because I made a whole video about petty international disputes over on my channel, in collaboration

with KhAnubis on this video.

Oh that’s right!

Yeah, so if you want to see some historical examples of things nations and world leaders

did for incredibly petty reasons, be sure to go to Spaghetti Road’s channel after

this video’s over…

In fact this video’s just about over right now.

Seriously… you can leave now.

Or you can stay and watch the end screen to see which country is holding the sign in this

video.

Hey Malaysia, what message do you have for everyone this week?

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